


Laid Beneath the Walls

by beltsquid



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Festival of the Lost (Destiny), Gen, Grief, Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 02:16:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21486673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beltsquid/pseuds/beltsquid
Summary: Ikora has no time for grief, but circumstances (and Eva) insist that she make time, regardless.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Laid Beneath the Walls

There’s no one place where Guardians are buried, if they’re buried at all when they meet their final deaths—after all, if a Guardian falls, it’s more likely than not that no one is able to claim their body in the first place. This is a reality that Hunters accept and even, privately, hope for—they would rather die as they fought, alone on the edges of the Wild. Warlocks prefer memorials on Io, as if the moon’s half-terraformed state will help them along in their exploration of the final mystery of death. Titans—or at least, Titans of the City—always imagine that they’ll be buried beneath the Walls, so that they’ll be their foundation even if their Light has been snuffed out. It hadn’t always been like that; for a long time they could not wholly fathom that the protectors of the fledgling City could die. But after Saladin turned the Iron Temple into a memorial when the Ironsbane left him the last of the Iron Lords, the Speaker found it prudent that the City should prepare a place for their honored dead. Leaders of the City would be interred in a mausoleum beneath the Tower, and the engineers among the Titan orders carved catacombs into the bones of Lord Silimar’s design.

In the most terrible irony it came to pass that it would come to hold more Hunters than anything else—and even then, few had their bodies placed there. The lion’s share of the deceased Vanguard had vanished (or, in Tallulah Fairwind’s case, been consumed) in the line of duty, and as such, most of the grave niches are empty behind the polished marble facades that bear their names. There are exceptions, of course. The most recent being Cayde-6.

Ikora is trying not to think of him laying dead beneath the Tower he felt chained to as Eva Levante leads a small army of maintenance frames laden with Festival of the Lost decorations into the bazaar. A festival that is an examination of loss could not come at a worse or better time than when the Darkness itself is manifesting as past traumas and Vex are pouring out of the Black Garden. She has more important things to attend than grief—namely, reverse engineering Vex portal technology in order to prune the Undying Mind out of multiple timelines at once and hopefully nip the Vex problem in the bud, as it were. Besides, she can’t afford grief when their enemy is wielding it as a weapon against them even as she chews the corner of her lip and averts her eyes from the trees and garlands being erected around the bazaar. 

Her mind will wander down painful paths of what-could-have-been if she lets it. How Cayde would have been a particular menace this year with Eris to pester once again. The anxiety brought on by the Pyramid and the Nightmare of Taniks in particular probably would have driven into being a downright terror. She busies herself with examining the fractal substructures of a Vex chassis before her trail of thought can go any further, but she expects Eva to interrupt her at any moment. To her surprise it’s her Ghost who breaks the tension.

“Ikora, I think you should know that just now there have been multiple failed security logins deep beneath the Tower,” says Ophiuchus. “It’s Banshee. I think he’s trying to see—”

“I know,” she responds before he can say Cayde’s name. 

“I think you should help him before he forgets what he’s doing. Besides this is the time of year when—”

“When I have to keep the Vex from destroying us all? I have more than enough on my plate as it is!” she snaps, gesturing at the warp gate in construction. The words don’t even finish leaving her throat before she knows that she’s being unfair, but she can’t help it. Ophiuchus furrows his shell over his eye and glares at her.

“Ikora…”

“Please excuse me for eavesdropping, but I think helping poor Banshee is a wonderful idea.” Ikora turns her attention to Eva Levante, who has evidently been standing within earshot. There’s nothing about the woman that Ikora would call ‘sneaky’ but she has an uncanny way of working her way into these conversations.

“Besides, all these festival preparations must be a terrible distraction. I don’t imagine you’ll get much work done for the next few hours. Besides, you are under so much stress. Seeing your friend might be just what you need, my dear,” Eva continues with unrelenting enthusiasm.

“But the construction,” Ikora protests even as she knows that she’s going to lose this argument, much like every argument she’s ever had with Eva.

“Will be here when you get back. Ah! I have an idea!” Eva claps her hands together. “Your Ghost friend can keep an eye on all this while you are gone. I’m told they are very good at watching things.”

Ophiuchus hangs in the air, looking about as bewildered as a stoic one-eyed machine can manage.

“I have been observing your plans thoroughly,” he admits. “I am confident I could recognize a mistake in construction should it arise while you are away.”

“See? You have nothing to worry about at all,” Eva smiles, the corners of her eyes wrinkling with years of warmth. “And when you return, all the decorations will be up to lift your spirits.”

“Very well,” Ikora sighs. Eva clamps her hands over hers and plants a fruit candy in her palm. She’s invariably always right in these matters and it would be maddening if she weren’t also so unflappably kind. It’s impossible to be angry at her.

Ikora pops the candy into her mouth and lets it dissolve while she makes the long journey into and below the wall. The interior is a patchwork mess of different styles of stairs and elevators that had been installed over generations of construction. It’s a nightmare for all but the most experienced to navigate; they often have to send Guardians in to retrieve new maintenance workers who haven’t had the time to grow familiar with the Wall’s quirks. Ikora has long since memorized the Wall’s eccentricities, mapped her own shortcuts. She knows which stairwells to jump and barely has to think about when to glide to a stop after falling through an elevator shaft. By the time she finds Banshee at the security checkpoint outside of the catacombs, only a sharpened sliver of Eva’s candy remains on her tongue. She crunches it between her teeth and approaches Banshee-44, who is fumbling with a keypad while two of Shaxx’s Redjack frames stare at him with wary sensors.

“Access denied,” they warn.

Banshee greets her with a wordless grunt. “Havin’ trouble rememberin’ which password I’m on,” he explains.

“Vanguard business,” she waves at the Redjacks, sidles up to Banshee, and inputs her override. The system blips green.

“Confirmed,” the frames chime in a choir of identical voices, and step away from the door.

“Thanks,” Banshee says, rubbing the back of his head. He picks up a glass bottle and a shot glass off the floor and passes through the door. She follows.

“Saw Eva in the Tower and realized what time of year it was,” he explains. “Brought some stuff up. Thought it’d be good to visit.”

They pass by empty tombs of Tallulah Fairwind, Caliban-8, Aparajita-4, Kauko Swiftriver. The Speaker lays interred above Saint’s similarly empty memorial. She knows now that his dead chassis lays somewhere in the Infinite Forest in some kind of monument built by the Vex. Sometimes she wishes that she could retrieve him and bring him where he belongs—nobody loved the City quite like Saint-14—but it’s a distant priority in a growing list of more pressing matters. As for Cayde, she made sure was placed next to Andal Brask. If anything, it gave her a little comfort to know that he would have wanted to be with him again—but not much, not enough. Her eyes focus on the floor instead of reading the plaque that bears his name.

“Hey Cayde. Sorry if it’s been a while,” Banshee says, kneeling to the floor. “You know how it is.”

Ikora smooths her hands over her robes and sits beside him. The concrete beneath her is cold enough to be felt through three layers of space-ready fabric and she idly thinks that next time she should bring a cushion. Banshee unscrews an unlabeled bottle made of clouded glass, splashes virescent liquor into a shot glass, and lays it at the floor beneath the grave.

“Cayde always said this stuff burned as hot as the sun when it went down,” he explains, and tips the bottle down his throat. He coughs. “He was right.”

Ikora reaches an open hand into the air before Banshee can offer the bottle. He passes it to her without a word. It does, in fact, sear its way down her throat when she drinks. Absolutely not the sort of thing she’d keep in her private collection. Exactly to Cayde’s taste. She hands it back to Banshee.

He takes another drink and stares at the grave in front of them.

“Half the time I forget he’s gone. Then it comes back to me and I lose him all over again. Figures, that’s just like Cayde. Comin’ and goin’ as he pleases. What was so hard about loving him was that he made it so easy, you know? Died doin’ some reckless thing, owin’ me money, and here I am wishing I could see the look on his face when he fires that fusion he asked for.” He runs his free hand over the spade symbol embossed in gold next to his name. “What a bastard,” he adds, fondly.

“Just so. What a bastard,” Ikora manages to croak, barely holding back the tears stinging the corners of her eyes. She doesn’t say it, but she envies him. Envies that Cayde didn’t have to question where he stood with him when he died. Envies that he got to fully explore what friendship with Cayde-6 meant. Things that she has only herself to blame for. In some ways, grieving what never was is worse than the loss itself.

“’S alright. I won’t tell no one.” Banshee touches her shoulder, his voice synth a gravel-laden rumble. “Hell, I’ll prolly forget it happened, anyway.”

Tears that she’s been holding back for weeks spill over her cheeks and her throat feels so tight it could snap.

“Wish Bray let us do that,” he says.

“It’s not fair,” she sobs without the need to specify.

“It sure ain’t.”

They pass the bottle between them a while, and tell Cayde about the year, about the Moon, about the Hive, about Eris. Ikora tells herself she’s omitting the worst of the news for Banshee’s sake, but in all honesty she can’t bring herself to tell Cayde that the Darkness has been tormenting Guardians in the shape of Taniks. He died with enough regret about Taniks as it was. No sense in making it worse beyond the grave. When a quarter of the bottle is left, Banshee screws the lid back on and places it next to the glass they’ve left for Cayde.

“Best be heading back,” he grunts, and lays a palm over Cayde’s name. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“We miss you, friend,” Ikora murmurs, mirroring the gesture with her hand over the spade symbol, and gets to her feet.

They retreat up the maze of stairs that lead to the upper levels of the wall arm-in-arm, sad, content. Eva’s team has worked itself with efficiency and speed: they emerge onto the walls and are greeted by lanterns, candles, cobwebs, and hokey music piped over the PA system. When the sun sets, the Festival of the Lost will officially begin. 

“You know, you’re not as scary as they say,” Banshee says, the corners of his cheekplates sliding to his eyes in an Exo smile.

“Hmm, I must be out of practice.”

“Andal told me the other day that you two got in a staring contest. Said it was like lookin’ straight into the Void. Scared the Light outta him,” he chuckles. “Told me ‘never get into a staring contest with a Warlock.’”

“He’s right,” she says with a smile on her face even as her heart sinks with the realization that his memory has already slipped into another time. How many people does he have to mourn anew?

“Speakin’ of Andal, if you see Cayde, send him my way. Owes me glimmer on a job. A few jobs, actually.”

“Of course.” She walks him to his post, where a line of Guardians are waiting impatiently. A dance-off has broken out on one end of the hallway. A Titan spikes a purple ball at the dancers and for a brief moment Ikora wonders if she’ll have to drag Shaxx over to break up a fight. The sight of Banshee is enough to turn their attention and the restless Guardians immediately stop what they’re doing to holler questions about armor mods at him.

“Back to work,” he rumbles, and turns to Ikora with a question in his eyes before slipping behind the workbench. “See you ‘round, friend?”

“See you around,” she agrees with a bow of her head. She’d never really known Banshee as a friend, per se, but perhaps he could be. Should be.

Eva is waiting for her at her post, which is now fully decorated with candles and pumpkins and lanterns. Her disarming smile is so wide it almost touches her ears.

“And how is Banshee? Did you help him?” She asks.

“He is well.”

“And you?”

“Better,” Ikora admits, hands tucked behind her back. “… Thank you. Both of you,” she adds, turning her attention to Ophiuchus, who is hovering stock still over her desk. He flutters his shell around him before floating to her side and pressing into her forehead for the briefest of seconds.

“Good, good. I worry about you Vanguards, you know. You work yourselves so very hard. So little time for your friends, for yourselves.”

“Happy Festival of the Lost, Eva,” Ikora says, and means it. 

Eva brightens and bounces on the balls of her feet, ever so briefly, in that moment seeming a much younger woman. “And a happy Festival of the Lost to you! I will leave you to your work now, but don’t forget to take some candy for yourself, okay?”

“I won’t forget,” she agrees, thinking of Banshee. When Eva leaves, she sets aside a fistful of festival candy to bring to him the next time she passes into the courtyard. After a moment, she adds another pile for Cayde. With that, she pops a fruit-flavored candy into her mouth and fixes her attention back to the construction of the warp gate.


End file.
